We figure we’ll be here a few weeks, and things aren’t looking good for getting outdoors anytime soon, so we’ve been hunting for things to do indoors instead. Today we took Ouest for a swimming evaluation to determine which swim class she should be placed in. She was excited, telling everyone, “I’m going to swimming school.”

Last night she asked me, “Papa, will I have a lot of homework for swimming school?”

So we showed up, and she was still psyched, and she changed into her swimsuit (which at size 6 is suddenly too small for her—she needs a seven year-olds size), still psyched, and the instructor lady came and jumped in the pool and called her over, and she was no longer psyched. We talked to her and let her make her own decision at her own pace, and after about five minutes she let go of Ali’s leg, ran quickly to a different swimming lane and jumped in—shocking the instructor who quickly scrambled over to “save” her.

So anyway, she passed right into an older level, and by the end of the evaluation she was psyched again. We figure it’s a good way for her to get comfortable with other adults as well as have some fun with other kids. It seems a little ludicrous for us to be spending this amount of money for Ouest to swim, but this is the path we’ve chosen for now, so we’ll do what we have to do. As for Lowe and swimming lessons, well it turns out he’s too young. Not that I think he’d be gung-ho about jumping into a pool with a stranger while Mama and Papa sat on a bench off to the side. We’ll have to stick to the open swimming for him.

I’ve torn out the carpet in the bus. Not a lot of surprises really. The passenger seat’s flooring needs replacing, and I’ll have to try and figure out where the water for that is coming from. Other than that the original wood looks clean and dry. Also behind the passenger’s footwell panel I found that critters had lived there for some time in the past. There was very finely chewed up wood three inches deep that was so compacted that I had to chisel it out with a screwdriver. Inside of that mess were a hundred acorns (or some such nuts). Amazingly the wiring and hoses that were buried right inside of it were untouched.

So demolition is coming along pretty well. No scary surprises, which is nice. But every time I rip something out all I can think of is how much longer it is going to take me to put it back together again.